TennisandSales

Head Of Sales

Acclaimed Answer

Successful dinner at a conference for the first time!

I was at an industry conference last week and our strategy team decided that we should do an invite only dinner. I only had 1 week to drive attendees to the event and we had a very general reason to come to the dinner.

The VP of strategy that was behind the idea was also on PTO the week prior to the event so the work was pretty much on my shoulders.

Thankfully I had pretty positive response to the outreach I did.

I was able to get one current customer, and 6 potential leads to come to the dinner and engage with us.

3 of the 6 prospects use our competitor. The dinner was not set up to be a "Come hear a sales pitch" which i was totally fine with. Thankfully 2 prospects who use the same competitor asked me to help them understand the difference between us and the competitor.......BOOM.

Took my shot and expanded on "the main reasons my current customers tell me they want to leave the competition".

Then the current customer expanded on what i said and gave the PERFECT pitch for me. it was like a dream.

Safe to say I have 2 solid opportunities becasue of this dinner.

Honestly im shocked it went so well and part of me think its karma from the sales gods....or just pure luck.

Anyone been able to do these types of dinners with any sort of regularity and success?

🔎 Prospecting

🏅 Competition

🏫 Conferences

13

21 comment

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jefe

Arsonist

6

🍁

BOOM! Love this shit.

Well done

unclespacejam

Politicker

5

ur dad’s brother

There’s another fellow Canuck, Scott Barker (ex-Sales Hacker, ex-Outreach) who had a ton of success with this kind of alternative sales motion/ driving pipeline by doing exactly that - exec dinners where you get several prospects in the room, and plant some current, happy customers and watch the magic happen

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

yeah i have seen him talk about this. that approach is legit, where he is an expert/thought leader now and can bring together other like minded folks pretty easily. I like the idea of doing that as well but using my VP who has the industry expereince as the "main event"

unclespacejam

Politicker

2

ur dad’s brother

Totally. Sounds like that shit would definitely be worth trying, rinse and repeat

oldcloser

Arsonist

5

💀

Nothing like a little good faith with a good meal to bring the back channel complaining to the front. When your shit is just better, this is a brilliant way to get endorsements. Well done!

…wouldn't mind seeing your script that roped the non-customers...

unclespacejam

Politicker

2

ur dad’s brother

Yes sir. Hook that shit up

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

I think there were a few factors that helped:
1. its a conference with not alot of happy hours going on, so ppl are looking for something to do, so saying "hey we are having a dinner" is something that ppl get excited about.

2. i framed it as an invite only event so ppl felt like they NEEDED to respond yes or no to me. which was nice.

3. the driver for the event was we wanted to celebrate the cool things the customers have done for the industry (these folks love to talk about them self and how cool they are) And we gave out awards as well.

So invite only event + allowing them to talk about them self + award = success!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

4

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I love the stealth approach to sales. Where there is no planned pitch, but networking. Magic can happen.
If I were you, I'd be doing this again, with different prospects and maybe a different region (if you work that way) and see if you can replicate the model. Worst case, you've connected prospects with your current (happy) customers and maybe if they don't convert to opps right away, they will have someone to reach out to and get those references.
Nicely done.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

FOR SURE. thats what me and the VP both thought. like hey, we can replicate this at EVERY conference and make the conference way more effective. on to the next one!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

0

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

May the next one work out well!

FoodForSales

Politicker

3

AE

dinners and food can work magic =)

now if it had been "brinner" - you would have closed the deals!

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

2

☕️

What. A. Volley by TaS.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

🤣🙌

SalesBeast

Politicker

1

Sales Leader

Solid work. Nice job. Dinners while costly will typically yield good conversation and get good deals moving and build relationships.
I wish we could do them but our budgets are small as shit.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

yeahhhh im for sure feeling the privilege of being on a team with money....and i also got to put my personal credit card down so raking in the points on that one 😂

SADNES5

Politicker

1

down voters are marketing spies

Maybe it's just a Canadian thing... Brought the idea down here to states and was met with. "We can't do that!" A few whys, and how's and we got it. Needless to say mixing happy clients with prospective clients and letting them talk does half the work.Dinners work. Frame it as a casual thing, a couple of pre dinner cocktails. it gets people loose and talking. Your happy customers are your best reps.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

10000% i got lucky this time that the customer showed up and they were open to just chatting. but going forward it will be a deliberate effort to have a customer there

Pachacuti

Politicker

1

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Great experience.

My company does regular dinners around all big conference events. I don't know about the success rate of dinner to closing sales, but its still a good event.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

does the team have any sort of agenda / goal with the dinners? or is it more "brand awareness"

Pachacuti

Politicker

1

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You buy someone a nice dinner and they feel obligated at some level. It’s also a good way to get a couple hours of someone’s attention.

Justatitle

Big Shot

1

Account Executive

Luck, skill, divine intervention, whatever you want to call it. In the industry, it's known as making it happen cuzzo.

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